That House

That House / Joshua Alan Sturgill

at that house
the woman
wears the smiles of other women
the boy finds strangers everywhere
the girl’s hands are hungry

all night
a dusty screen-glare
flickers behind the curtains
and loose wires on the roof
from an old tv antenna
rattle in the wind

paint flakes drop slowly
from eaves, from window frames
gathered in gray piles
along the cinder block foundation
where nothing grows

at that house
is hidden
what everyone can see.
halfway along the block
but outside our neighborhood